Sartynsky: Petro Pahniuk will be back on the national team

Gennady Sartynsky, the personal coach of Oleg Verniaiev and the head coach of the Ukrainian MAG gave an interview to iSport.ua. He talked about the competitions the team will attend and the upgrades in Verniaiev’s routines. While in March Sartynsky was clearly unhappy with Petro Pahniuk and still holding grudges against him for leaving Ukraine, it seems that Petro is back in Sartynsky’s graces.

Q: Tell us how the national team preparations are going?

A: We just had the Ukrainian Cup. We’ll be figuring out how people competed and who we’ll take to the training camps. We’re bringing the juniors to train and compete with the senior team.

Q: Did the Cup serve as a selection process for the national team?

A: We’re selecting the teams for the Universiade, for the Worlds, for the junior competitions. We’re trying to estimate at the same time who should go where.

Q: What competitions do you plan to attend before the Worlds?

A: World Universiade will take place in Taipei from the 19th to the 30th of August and we’ll go there. Then there will be a few World Cups where we’ll go to try out new routines. We’ll go to Bulgaria and then to France a week before [we leave for] the Worlds so that we’ll be completely prepared for the main competition of the year.

Q: Will Oleg Verniaiev also go to the Universiade?

A: Yes, this is an interesting and a necessary competition, so we will send a full team. In addition, long breaks aren’t good for us, we need to compete.

Q: Which of Verniaiev’s routines are you planning to change?

A: We’re completely changing his floor routine and also upgrading on the pommel horse, high bar, and the parallel bars. We’re changing 4 of his routines. Vault and rings will stay the same, he’s up to the level on those. We can’t grasp at everything at once.

Q: Will Petro Pahniuk, who returned from Azerbaijan, be on the team?

A: He’s training with us, he became second at the Ukrainian Cup, he’s competing new routines and upgrading them. I have no complaints about him, he’s training and working well. If he’s healthy, he’s 100% going to be on the team. He’s at the international level, so he’ll surely be on the team.

Q: Who is going to compete at the Worlds?

A: First of all, Oleg Verniaiev and Igor Radivilov. Then we’ll look at individual routines, considering these are individual Worlds, with no team competition. Our team will try to do well at the Universiade now.